Regardless of the content you teach, integrating arts into your curriculum can tap into students’ natural interests in areas such as music and visual arts while expanding their understanding of how subjects interconnect.  And whether students experience others’ art or make their own, creativity is a powerful antidote to boredom, distraction, or worse.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that right now we can share two exciting resources for arts integration.   Enchanted Circle Theater is launching its first Institute for Arts Integration, a program designed to train teachers in the pedagogy of arts integration as a method for engaging students in meaningful and memorable learning.  Due to support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Northampton, Holyoke and Springfield Public Schools, ECT is able to offer a subsidized tuition fee of $250 with a savings of $1200 per person.  Click here for the full brochure.  (Registration Deadline is September 18.)

You can also regularly explore thousands of resources at PBS LearningMedia where arts integration is currently highlighted on its homepage.  For example,  Overview of the Arts, part of KET’s Social Studies/Arts Toolkit for K-12, provides an overview of the benefits of an arts-infused classroom; important notes on each aspect of the arts: dance, drama, music, and visual art; and basic techniques for integrating the arts into your classroom.  Paint Art ,a video for grades 4-6 , shows young engineers Renee and Margarita as they experiment with unusual and creative painting techniques at the Science Museum of Minnesota, using a bike and spinning wheel to create unique, splat-tacular art.